01 December 2006

Yeah, right. Here at the Tattler, we talk about all the glory of practical shooting. The trophies, the prize tables, the ultra fast splits, the awesome stage runs etc. etc. etc.

What we have yet to discuss is what I consider to be the bane of shooting 20,000 rounds a year.

Yep, making those 20,000 sucks. Bad. I don't believe that I enjoyed a single solitary thing about making them except for one thing that makes it truly worth it. I can make a box of 50 180g JHP .40SW rounds for somewhere between 4 and 5 bucks. The same, or similar box of 50 would cost somewhere in the realm of 20 bucks. I could probably buy a box of Winchester white box or Blazer in the $12-15 dollar range but even that is significantly more expensive than my handloads.

I've got one of the best handloading presses out there, a Dillon 550 (eclipsed only by it's big brothers the 650 and 1050), but I still hate every minute of it.

I've heard some people talk about how much they enjoy handloading, but all I can say is that I think they are full of poop.

U.S. companies will need to keep track of all the e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees thanks to new federal rules that go into effect Friday, legal experts say.

Now companies must archive all IM and email transmissions, so they can be avalaible for subpoena in the eventuality of litigation. Big deal, you say?

James Wright, director of electronic discovery at Halliburton Co., said that large companies are likely to face higher costs from organizing their data to comply with the rules. In addition to e-mail, companies will need to know about things more difficult to track, like digital photos of work sites on employee cell phones and information on removable memory cards, he said.

The only thing that makes this story even better is that they're journalism students. Looks like the NYT recruitment program is in full swing.

The course, which includes such issues as "Why be Ethical?" and "Tribal Loyalty vs. Journalistic Obligation," is taught by New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, who could not be reached yesterday.

30 November 2006

Well, I've had the MP40 about a month or so now and I've been able to sneak some rounds through it when the 2011 wasn't looking. I've gone through somewhere around 300-400 rounds of various ammo, both full power and the infamous "40 light", truncated cone and hollowpoint, jacketed and moly coated.

Not a single failure to fire that I can attribute to the pistol. I DID have one failure to fire last night, but that was a bad primer, and no fault of the gun. I haven't yet cleaned the gun or done anything to it, other than blacken out the two dots on the back sight. Word on the street is that Dawson will soon have a new front sight out for the MP, which I will purchase as quickly as I can. The stock one is simply too damn fat.

The MP40 shoots very very soft, is extremely ergonomic in the hand and I am overall very impressed with this pistol. I will likely shoot it until it jams, or until I just can't take the filth anymore, whichever comes first. As it stands now, it has almost made my minimum requirements of being able to shoot 500 rounds without cleaning. Right now I'm running a combination of FP10 oil, mixed with some heavy synthetic motorcycle oil - and a fairly light coating at that. Once the pistol gets properly broken in, I'll likely only run the FP10 through it.

As the pistol comes with 3 grip inserts (Small, Med., Lrg.), allowing you almost tailor fit the pistol to your hands, I put the large inserts in and it fits just about perfect. The stainless mags are awesome - they drop free quickly, and there's nothing in the mag well to mess you up as you're doing a speed reload.

The trigger is very good - for a plastic gun - with no spongy slack like you'll find in a Glock, and the trigger breaks remarkably clean for what it is. No, it's nothing as good as the trigger on my 2011 - nor do I expect it to be. For a plastic gun, it's damn good and I won't be doing a thing to it, other than shoot it and dry fire - which will smooth the trigger out even more.

If the MP turns out to be dependable and reliable (word on the street is that several PDs have run 10,000 rounds through with no failures - so I see no reason to think it won't be...), then Smith has a serious and potent contender to the dominance that is Glock.

The pistol has proven to be spot on accurate with my hand loads - keyholes and silver dollar sized groups of rapid fire at 10-15 yards are very (and easily) doable.

If you're a lefty, then Smith has really helped you out with this pistol - it comes standard with ambi slide releases, and you can easily change the mag release button to the other side of the pistol.

About the only downside at this time is that things like holsters and mag pouches are still a little hard to find, but can be found (I converted an Uncle Mike's kydex Glock 21 holster with very little effort) and the price of mags is pretty expensive, about $35-$40 per mag.

I'd be willing to bet that next year, once some of the "new gun" hubbub has died down, you can pick up an MP for under $400, which again, would put a serious crimp in Glock's style; and I expect that as time goes by, holsters will be readily available and the price of mags will come down as well.

28 November 2006

Well, considering that we're usually a few years behind what the folks in Britain find acceptable, I suppose it won't be too long before the same sort of thing happening here stateside.

Maybe I should make a trip to England before it's no longer the country I remember. I mean, if the Taliban would destroy statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan that dated back to the 3rd century AD, what would keep them from destroying things like Stonehenge or Hadrian's Wall??

Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways flight 300 to Phoenix.

Strange behavior #2:

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

Strange behavior #3:

Three of the men asked for seat-belt extenders, although two flight attendants told police the men were not oversized. One flight attendant told police she "found this unsettling, as crew knew about the six [passengers] on board and where they were sitting." Rather than attach the extensions, the men placed the straps and buckles on the cabin floor, the flight attendant said.

Strange behavior #4:

... witnesses told law enforcement that the men spoke in Arabic and English, criticizing the war in Iraq and President Bush, and talking about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

Strange behavior #5:

The imams who claimed two first-class seats said their tickets were upgraded. The gate agent told police that when the imams asked to be upgraded, they were told no such seats were available. Nevertheless, the two men were seated in first class when removed.

Strange behavior #6:

A flight attendant said one of the men made two trips to the rear of the plane to talk to the imam during boarding, and again when the flight was delayed because of their behavior.

Ok, so what we have here are not 1, not 2, not 3, but SIX different actions that these fools took before and after boarding their flight. If it looks like a duck, flies like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a cougar if we are to believe the terrorist apologists at CAIR.

Another item of concern to me is that not a single currently employeed airline employee or air Marshall would comment on the record. Now, why would anyone be scared to say anything that can be percieved as being negative towards muslims? Couldn't be because they're all afraid of losing their jobs, right?

It strikes me as being VERY similar to this article, which claims that police officers are more afraid of being sued than being killed. If true, it's a very very sad state of affairs. All we can do is call out the terrorist apologists whenever they open their mouths and let them know that we're not buying what they're trying to stuff down our throats.

27 November 2006

Nice looking blaster. I actually kinda like the addition of the thumb safety. I'm so used to shooting a 19/2011, that when I pick up a plastic gun without a thumb safety, I have a hard time getting a consistent grip from time to time....

As one of the German-descended bloggers here, I found this article pretty interesting. My family is from the so-called German Coast of Louisiana, where a very large German community settled. The Germans were readily absorbed into the very eclectic South Louisiana society, and little remains (except for boudain - local Lousiana junk stuffed into a sausage casing - a German invention). I think it's commendable that this UT professor is working to preserve the dialect of Texas German.

Still the German spoken by immigrants across Central Texas differed widely from town to town, even family to family, because the immigrants came from different German regions and spoke a variety of dialects. Many had limited knowledge of standard German, either spoken or written.

Over time, immigrants adapted their language, their children studied standard German in school, and they traded vocabulary with other dialects.

Texas Germans also borrowed from English, coming up with phrases such as der cowboy, or der fenzposten, "the fencepost."